


If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now

by shipshape_sheep



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Bill Cipher is a Jerk, Confessions of love, M/M, Ultimately a Happy Ending but Some Weird Stuff Happens, emotional reunions, well...kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:49:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7890874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipshape_sheep/pseuds/shipshape_sheep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After hopping from dimension to dimension in a desperate attempt to escape Bill Cipher, Stanford Pines finds himself in a world that seems miraculously--suspiciously--like home. Takes place during Stanford's adventures in the portal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ford collapsed behind a boulder, hissing as he clutched his wounded side. The mechapterodactyl's laser beam only grazed him, but it left a charred, sizzling gash right through his leather overcoat and into his flesh. His heart pounded as he struggled to catch his breath. He scanned the parched prehistoric—posthistoric? He wasn't clear on the timeline of this robot dinosaur universe—landscape for gleaming metal. Nothing but cracked earth and stunted plants. 

Good. A moment of silence. He could finally try his quantum destabilizer, see if he could roll the dice on this multiverse of infinite hellscapes one more time. With a little luck, he might be able to slip into a universe where he could hide out from Bill in relative peace, somewhere without t-rexes with heat-seeking vision and missle launchers.

The destabilizer, a rusty piece of junk cobbled together from a half-dozen universes' worth of scraps that resembled a cheap ham radio more than anything, buzzed stubbornly as as he twisted the dials. 

“Come on, damn you, work,” he muttered under his breath. 

The metallic shriek of a titanium stegosaurus echoed over the savannah. Ford's eyes stung with desperation as he jiggled every switch. A spinning sawblade whirred through the air and clanged off the side of the boulder, missing Ford's ear by a half-inch and showering the dry ground with sparks.

Ford groaned. In a moment of foolish despair, he flung the destabilizer to the ground. It shattered.

He sifted through the broken fragments of metal and wire with trembling fingers. Tears burned in his eyes. “No...no...”

The stegosaurus' footsteps shook the earth, closer and closer, raising huge clouds of dust. Ford squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for a sawblade to cleave him in two, knowing that at last, even after all this time and all his patience, he had failed. Knowing he would never make it home again.

Then, in a shimmering kailedoscope of gold, the universe tore itself apart and wove itself back together.

\---

Ford blinked into awareness under the shadows of a pine tree. The air smelled like cool wet earth. Glimpses of blue sky shifted between the towering branches above him. A chirping robin hopped from bough to bough.

An earsplitting screech frightened the robin into a fluttering frenzy. Something heavy tromped through the underbrush, cracking branches and sending down showers of green needles. The mechapterodactyl? A cyberdilphosaurus? No, the dinosaur universe had been barren and arid, nothing but deserts and husked out cities coated in dust. He was somewhere else now, a world capable of forests. Instinctively, Ford grabbed for the destabilizer, but there was nothing on the mossy ground, not even shattered pieces. 

Something burst out the treeline, but it was much too small to be the monster rumbling the ground. It was a human man. 

“That's right, come git some, you overgrown bullfrog!”  
The familiar voice made Ford's stomach freeze. He tried to pull himself up higher on trembling arms, craning his neck to see through the long shadows of the forest.

It was Fiddleford. Fiddleford in one of his threadbare sweatshirts from college, BACKUPSMORE CHESS printed across the faded chest, Fiddleford with pine needles in his tawny hair and scratches on his cheek, Fiddleford swinging a banjo at a monster—which did indeed look a little like a huge, mastiff-sized, muscular bullfrog—with swirling golden-green lava lamp eyes. A gremoblin. Runty and small, perhaps a juvenile, but unmistakable.

The gremoblin screamed again, showing sharp yellow teeth, and Fiddleford walloped it hard with the banjo, which twanged and popped a string. The creature winced in pain and lunged forward. Fiddleford sprawled backwards onto the ground with a thump, prone.

Adrenaline surged through Ford's veins—he leapt to his feet, grabbed the first branch handy, threw himself in front of Fidddleford, kicked the gremoblin square in the forehead with all his strength, and swung with all the force he could muster. The stick collided hard with the monster's skull. The gremoblin made an awful keening sound and, after one last halfhearted rake with its clawed paw, loped back into the trees. Ford let the splintered branch fall from his hand.

“Fiddleford...” Ford's voice was hoarse with amazement as he reached down to help Fiddleford to his feet. There was no mistaking that open, sweet country-boy face, bruised and muddied and wincing as it was, no mistaking that spill of honey-brown hair over the forehead or that just-a-fraction-crooked nose. “Are you...are you...”

“I'm fine,” Fiddleford said, taking Ford's hand and pulling himself to his feet (and his palm was so warm, so real.) Fiddleford brushed the dead leaves out his hair and the dirt off his clothes. “Broke a danged banjo string. But what about you? You had me scared sick! I've been out here looking for you for hours!”

Very suddenly, Fiddleford hugged him. Ford could feel Fiddleford's steady heartbeat, smell his sweat and shaving soap and pipe tobacco. He was too shellshocked to return the embrace, or even to open his mouth. He just stood in silence, feeling Fiddleford's warm body squeeze against him, a long-lost sensation he'd been dreaming about since the night his best friend stormed out of his life forever.

“It didn't hurt ya, did it?” Fiddleford asked him, pulling away, his eyebrows knitting together in concern as he scanned Ford's body. 

Ford's hand automatically flew to his side where the mechapterodactyl burned him only moments ago. But there was no sign of an injury. In fact, he was wearing completely different clothes—a turtleneck sweater and khakis he might have been wearing on any typical mystery-hunting day with Fiddleford.

“N...no. I'm all right.”

The worried crease in Fiddleford's forehead only deepened. “Oh, lord. You looked into its eyes, didn't ya? I did too. Couldn't help it. I saw myself still living in the sticks with my dad, letting him scream at me all livelong day while I fixed tractor engines.” Fiddleford shuddered. “I saw myself in a life where I would have never had Tate, where I would have never dreamed of working with you. Where I was just some no-name hillbilly nobody cared about.”

For some reason, Fiddleford blushed—Ford had forgotten about that sudden, vivid pink blush that suffused Fiddleford's face at the most random times, as particularly Fiddlefordian as his drawl or his bitten fingernails.

Ford's head still spun. Could it all have been a vision, as immaterial as one of the Gremoblin's nightmares? The awful look of betrayal on Fiddleford's face when he pulled him from the portal. His brother's horrified scream as he watched Ford vanish into nothingness. Bill cackling in his ear as he chased him from one dimension to another, each more horrific and deadly than the last. Were all those years just a dream in a monster's eye?

Ford realized he had sunk to the ground with his head buried in his hands.

“Oh, Ford,” Fiddleford sighed, squeezing Ford's shoulder gently. Ford felt Fiddleford's long fingers stroking his hair. “That critter really did a number on you, didn't it? Let's get you home.”


	2. Chapter 2

Back in the cabin. The familiar smells of pine trees, dust, and engine oil lingered in the air—the comfortable smells of home. Ford was slumped in the kitchen chair where he'd sat countless times before, eating Fiddleford's scrambled eggs for breakfast or talking with the man late into the night, discussing strategies for building the portal or mysteries they'd witnessed together deep in the woods. The late afternoon light spilled through the kitchen window, syrupy and orange, making even the dirty dishes cluttering the sink look beautiful. Fiddleford took the whistling kettle off the stove and poured Ford a cup of tea. In the setting sun slanting through the window, the edges of his brown hair glowed gold.

“Drink that.” Fiddleford placed the mug of tea down in front of his stunned, silent partner and slid into the chair on the other side of the table. “I know you like coffee better, but you need to settle your nerves. That danged horny toad has you all shaken up. You've barely spoken two words to me since I found you, you know that? Ain't you supposed to be talking my ear off about extraterrestrials and space-time anomalies and grand conspiracies? You're falling down on the job.”

Fiddleford's smile was gentle and sweet, but there was a still a touch of dismay in his eyes. Ford stared into his partner's face, wondering when it would shimmer and vanish. Ever since the night Fiddleford stormed out of the lab, never to return, Ford had dreamed about his partner nearly every night. Fiddleford would knock hesitantly on the door, they'd exchange tearful apologies, embrace...but then Ford would wake up drenched in cold sweat, alone. 

But—had Fiddleford ever really left? Everything from the past years—and how long had it even been since he was sucked into that awful nightmare world?--felt more and more immaterial, like frost melting as the sun rose. He could barely remember images, details, sequences of events. It all felt like...  
A bad dream.

Ford shook his head and sipped the tea, which was spicy and sweet. Cinnamon, Fiddleford's favorite. He winced when he burnt the tip of his tongue.

“I'm fine,” Ford said. His voice sounded deep and steady to his own ears. Good. Maybe he could hide the way his heart was still pounding against his ribcage. “What about you? You have a lot of scratches and bruises. You should let me take a look, Fidds.”

Fiddleford shrugged, but smiled a little broader, cheered by the old nickname. “Just a little dinged up. Nothing that a hot shower and a good night's sleep can't fix.” Fiddleford grabbed his busted banjo from where it leaned against the side of his chair and placed it on the kitchen table. Frowning, he plucked at the frazzled string. “I'm more worried about my banjo. I hadn't exactly been expecting to run into a gremoblin when I went out looking for ya, so I didn't think to arm myself. Had to make do with whatever was in my rucksack. I thought maybe you just fell asleep in a clearing someplace again. That's where you were the last time you were late for supper. You sure do catch winks in the oddest places, Stanford.”

The corner of Ford's mouth tilted into a tiny smile, remembering the many times he'd woken up slumped in front of his computer monitor to find that Fiddleford had draped a blanket over his shoulders. Already, those simple memories seemed far more vivid and immediate than the hundreds of universes he'd trudged through. But the smile quickly faded—his mind was still buzzing, unable to accept that any of this could possibly be real. “Fiddleford? When you looked into the gremoblin's eyes and had that vision of your father, did you experience any...other strange anomalies?” A lump formed in Ford's throat and he swallowed hard. “Time distortions, for instance?”

“Well, gosh...” Fiddleford gazed down at the broken banjo, a distant look in his eyes. “It felt like I was stuck in my dad's run-down old barn for what felt like durned near an eternity, now that you mention it. Weeks, months, years, even. But it's fading so quickly. It's the strangest feelin'.” 

Fiddleford glanced up, focusing on Ford's face. Ford was struck by the not only the blueness of his eyes, but the depth of tenderness inside them. “Stanford, what did you see in there? I've never seen you so scared before.”

Ford broke eye contact, gulping down the rest of the tea so fast it burned his throat. “Just nonsense. Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

Fiddleford sighed. He pushed back from the table, chair legs squeaking much too loud on the wooden floor. “Fine, fine. No surprise that you wouldn't want to talk to me about it. You're about the stubbornest man I ever met.”

Fiddleford stormed around the kitchen in silence for a while, and it wasn't until he slid a plate containing a diagonally-cut turkey sandwich across the table under Ford's nose that Ford realized his partner had been simultaneously fuming and making him dinner. 

“You need to eat. Maybe that will help you get your thoughts together. When you're ready to stop sulkin', I'll be down in the lab.” 

Ford staggered to his feet so fast he knocked over the kitchen chair—clatter of wood on wood strikingly loud in the quiet ktichen. He grabbed Fiddleford's shoulders and shook him, making his stunned partner's glasses slide down his nose.

“No! Don't you dare go down there! I don't want you anywhere near that damned contraption!” 

Fiddleford stared into Ford's face, glassy-eyed. “F-Ford, wh-what are you...”

“Are you listening to me? I never want you going near that godforsaken portal again, do you understand? I can't...I can't lose you again.”

Ford realized he was hugging Fiddleford tighter than he ever had before. Fiddleford's body pressed against his own, warm and close. He could feel the softness of Fiddleford's worn-out sweatshirt and the steady thump of his heart. Ford took a stumbling step backward, wiping away the tears that had somehow appeared on his cheeks with the heels of his hands.

“I'm sorry,” Ford stammered, his face burning with shame. 

Fiddleford adjusted his crooked glasses with trembling fingers. His face betrayed no emotion beyond numb confusion. “It's okay, Ford. It's been a long day for both of us. We'll both get some rest, how 'bout that?”

Ford busied himself with replacing the tipped-over chair. He could still feel his ears and scalp burning. Ford, an intensely private man who guarded his personal space, rarely sought out physical touch as a form of reassurance. Why had he suddenly needed to have the other man safe in his arms so badly? Fiddleford must think he was some kind of maniac, clumsily grabbing him out of nowhere. “That's probably for the best.”

Ford twitched at the sudden touch of fingertips on his arm. It was Fiddleford, offering him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder and a shaky but trying-to-be-encouraging smile.

“We'll figure this whole crazy mess out, just you wait and see. Flapjacks in the morning?”

Ford, still reeling, could only offer a dazed nod.

As Fiddleford left the kitchen, he shouted over his shoulder. “Eat that sandwich, you stubborn old mule!” Ford chuckled, surprising himself. It was the first time he had laughed in a very, very long time.

\--

Night fell. Ford sat on his shabby old quilt, examining Fiddleford's broken banjo by the light of a kerosense lamp on his bedside table and the silvery moon streaming through his bedroom window. Also on the bedside table: a little china plate containing the crumbs and crust of a turkey sandwich, cut diagonal. An owl crooned somewhere in the woods, and the wind rustled through the trees. Millions of stars twinkled in the purple sky.

So he had never been sucked into the multiverse. Fiddleford never left. The portal lay uncompleted in the basement. Earlier in the evening, once he was sure Fiddleford was asleep in his bedroom, he forced himself to go down to the lab, just to make absolutely certain. The portal was nothing but a rickety skeleton surrounded by a jumble of scribbled notes, tools, and half-drunk mugs of coffee. He took no small satisfaction in picking up the heaviest wrench handy and smashing the half-finished thing to rubble.  
Now he sat in his bedroom, wide awake but quite peaceful, putting something back together instead of taking something apart.

With a needle-nosed plier, he worked at the banjo, making sure the once-crooked string was held straight and sound. He plucked the strings, soft plink-plunk-plunks in the mellow half-light. The sequence was off. Something was misaligned.

Ford had never been much of a musician. His extra digit had always made him clumsy with the delicate workings of instruments and a source of gawps and muttered comments in the band room. But he loved watching Fiddleford play his banjo. He teased the man relentlessly about his off-key bluegrass warble and his corny old country songs, but he loved the gentleness with which Fiddleford strummed and plucked, the soft way his long fingers swept over the strings, producing chords that seemed too aching and lovely and sweet for such a goofy-looking instrument. He tried to remember exactly how Fiddleford tuned the damned thing. Twist this knob here, and this one there? Ford plucked each string, listening hard, trying to get the notes true.

“You're way off.”

Ford glanced up to see Fiddleford leaning against the doorway in an undershirt and rumpled plaid pajama pants, a crooked smile on his tired, stubbled face.

“Let me take a look,” Fiddleford said, crossing the bedroom— bare feet stepping over some twenty-sided die from a days-old game of Dungeons and Dungeons and strewn laundy—to sit next to his partner on the bed. His fingers worked at the instrument with speed and certainty. When he strummed the banjo, it sounded perfect. “Nothin' to it. Nice job fixing the string though. Much obliged, Ford.”

“Least I can do for saving my life,” Ford said, smoothing the bedspread with his palms, looking at the floor. The Dungeons and Dungeons figurines—Fiddleford's gnome bard, his own elfin sorceress--lay together on the floorboards, their molded plastic hands touching, like they had fallen asleep stargazing.

“Not sleeping, huh?” Fiddleford asked.

Ford grunted, shook his head.

“Me neither.” 

A long silence. Some kind of insect chirped and whirruped in the grass, one long mournful note repeated at slightly varied pitches.

“I heard you,” Fiddleford said, finally, his voice hesitant. “Downstairs. Breaking the portal.”

“I'm not sorry I did it.” Ford didn't look at his partner. A bit of cloud moved over the moon and the shadows in the room got long.

“All those years of work. All your dreams.” There was no anger in Fiddleford's voice, just pure befuddlement. Fiddleford's hand closed over Ford's own on the bedspread and clasped tight. Ford looked up into the other man's face, startled by the sudden intimacy. “What did you see in that thing's eyes? Will you please tell me?”

“I should have told you the moment you found me. You're my partner, you deserve to know the truth.” The words tumbled out of him suddenly, surprisingly painlessly, even though his heart pounded and his vision blurred. “I saw us finish the portal together. I saw you fall in accidentally and see...something horrible. Something that made you leave the cabin and never come back.”

Fiddleford shook his head, his brow furrowing. “I would never just desert the project like that. We're a team.”

“You were right to leave.” Fiddleford blinked, taken aback by the gruff intensity of Ford's voice. “I should have never dragged you into this ridiculous plan, should have never put you in danger. I became obsessed. I finished the portal. There was an accident—I was dragged inside—and I was lost. I wandered from universe to universe, hunted, just trying to stay alive. I gave up hope I'd ever find my way home. And then I ended up here.”

Fiddleford exhaled softly. “Oh, Ford. You must have thought this was some kind of--”

“Lie. Illusion. Trick.” Ford shut his eyes against his throbbing headache. “I guess I still can't trust that this is real. It's impossible for me to believe that I get a chance to start over. It feels like a miracle—like something I don't deserve.”

Fiddleford gripped Ford's hand in both of his palms, squeezing it tight. “This is real. You're here. We're here together.”

“I—hurt you, Fidds. I broke you. I abused your trust, all for my own selfish ambition. I thought I'd lost you forever, and I deserved to lose you--” Ford's voice crumbled. Tears rolled from under his glasses and dripped off the tip of his nose.

“Hey, hey, you hush now.” Fiddleford scooped Ford into a hug with a lanky arm, pressing his teary face into the shoulder of his threadbare undershirt. “All that nonsense's done with.”

Ford sobbed. He felt Fiddleford's chin resting on the top of his head, and realized the man was rocking him gently, to and fro. Any self-consciousness or shame reached some kind of critical peak and dissolved. He let himself be comforted.

“How can I make you believe you're home?” Fiddleford pulled away gently. “You know, I reckon I know a pretty good way.”

Ford cleaned off his smudged, tear-speckled glasses on the edge of the quilt and looked at his partner. There was a deep blush suffusing Fiddleford's face and a strange, shy, crooked smile on his lips. 

“If you were in some kind of gremoblin alternate dimension nightmare realm, could you hear banjo playing this fantastic?” Fiddleford's shy smile became wicked.

“Don't you dare--” Ford sputtered.

Fiddleford grabbed the banjo from the other side of the bed and began strumming furiously. “Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for meeeee!” he caterwauled.

Ford burst into helpless laughter, tears pouring from his eyes, hiccuping from guffaws and tears and pure madness. Still hiccuping, still red-faced and rumpled and ridiculous, he grabbed Fiddleford by the front of his tear-damp undershirt, tugged him forward—and kissed him.


End file.
